


Dreams and Schemes and Circus Crowds

by ladivvinatravestia



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Domestic Avengers, Ensemble Cast, Established Relationship, Fade to Black, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Misunderstandings, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Team as Family, Temporary Amnesia, everyone lives in the Tower like it's 2012, gratuitous pop culture references, insults as endearments, women in STEM
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 03:39:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18402353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladivvinatravestia/pseuds/ladivvinatravestia
Summary: Steve, Tony, and Clint are hit with a de-aging spell. But instead of turning them into adorable, small children, it just turns them into younger versions of their adult selves, who are now very confused about what they are doing in this tower and who all these people are who claim to be their teammates.





	Dreams and Schemes and Circus Crowds

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [falashad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falashad/pseuds/Falashad) for excellent beta services!
> 
> Written for shrinkyclinks fest prompt #4 "Steve gets hit by a magic spell that de-ages him to his pre-war self with delay. Steve wakes up next to Bucky. Which wouldn't be that shocking, except...Bucky has long hair, a metal arm, and they are in a building that speaks?"
> 
> Additional warnings: Bucky experiences physical symptoms of anxiety related to his time in captivity; Clint is HoH; mentions of past cross-dressing.

Steve wakes up coughing and gasping for air, which is nothing new.The coughing and gasping wakes up Bucky, which is also nothing new.But that’s where anything familiar ends, because instead of rolling over sleepily and protesting that it’s too goddamn early for an asthma attack, Bucky is suddenly, terrifyingly alert. He sits straight up in bed, an entirely blank expression briefly crossing his face before he seems to come to himself.

“Shit, Steve,” says Bucky, and that’s definitely him, he smells and sounds the way he always has, but when he reaches up to push his hair out of his eyes, it’s so long it nearly reaches his jaw and his jaw is so covered in scruff it can’t have all just grown in overnight.And the hand he’s using to push his hair back is - metal?

And the air is cool and clean-smelling, which helps Steve get his breathing under control, but as the light level in the room gradually rises Steve can tell this is not their apartment in Brooklyn Heights any more.

“Buck,” Steve manages, “what the hell is going on here?”

Bucky scrubs his hands over his face again, and then reaches out to take Steve’s hands in his own.

“Um, okay, what’s the last thing you remember?” he says.

“ _Shadow of the Thin Man_ ,” says Steve.They’d gone to see it by themselves after the girls Bucky had invited for a double date stood them up, and then they’d gone home, fooled around a little bit, and then gone to sleep.Or had they started drinking after the movie?Is there any other possible explanation for why he has no memory of how he ended up here?

Bucky scrunches his nose up.“That was nineteen thirty…” he starts.

“Nineteen forty-one,” Steve corrects.

“Well, it’s not forty-one any more,” Bucky says.

“What?” says Steve.Now he only has more questions than he had before.

And as he is thinking things couldn’t possibly get any stranger, a smooth voice with a British accent speaks from somewhere in the room, “Captain Rogers, Sergeant Barnes, if I may, it is currently seven forty-five in the morning on Sunday, August twelfth, two thousand eighteen.You are in your apartment in Avengers Tower and there are currently no emergencies or alerts in progress.”Captain? Sergeant?

“The _year_ is 2018?” Steve asks.Speaking to a disembodied voice is pretty strange, but so is the rest of this situation. He thinks about some of the fantastical situations portrayed in Bucky’s _Weird Tales_ and _Amazing Stories_.Time travel?Or maybe something out of the old folk tales his Ma used to tell - stolen away by the Fair Folk?

“Yes, sir,” says the voice, “and in addition, Ms. Maximoff is at the door for you.”

“Thanks, JARVIS, let her in,” says Bucky, and as he’s pulling away from Steve to get out of the bed Steve notices the glint of gold on the ring finger of his metal hand.

Okay.Whatever the is going on here, Steve can _not_ get back into bed with Bucky again if he’s a married man now.He should also definitely not be watching as Bucky rolls out of the bed and bends over to pull on a pair of shapeless grey trousers he’s picked up off the floor.If Bucky had been muscular before, from his work at the docks, he seems to be half that size again, now, and his thighs are - Steve tears his eyes away and forces himself to focus on something else in the room.

His gaze lands on a framed color photograph on the bedside table next to him.It shows him and Bucky in matching blue jackets with black satin lapels, wearing identical smiles, although he must be standing on at least two apple crates because he’s the same height as Bucky and his tailor has clearly worked some kind of miracle because he also looks just as broad as Bucky.It must be from - Steve’s heart sinks again - Bucky’s wedding day, and -

“Hey, you coming?” Bucky asks, breaking into Steve’s thoughts.“Wanda’s waiting for us.”

Steve tries to shuffle his way out of the bed and finds himself hindered by his undershirt, which is several sizes too large for him, and his trousers, which are so big they merely fall off when he tries to stand up.

“Oh, shit,” cackles Bucky as Steve slumps back against the bed, irritated.

From somewhere outside the bedroom, a woman’s voice calls out, “Boys?”

“Yeah sorry, just a minute,” Bucky calls back.

Is Wanda the new wife?But no, the disembodied voice had called her by a different last name, not Barnes.Steve glances around the bedroom, assuming he’ll see a picture of Bucky and his wife somewhere.Meanwhile, Bucky is rummaging through the dresser on his side of the bed.

“Here, you’ll have to roll up the cuffs but there’s a drawstring so they’ll at least stay up,” Bucky says, tossing another pair of the shapeless grey trousers at Steve.They hit him in the face.

Steve struggles into the trousers - they’re made of a stretchy material that is fuzzy on the inside - and follows Bucky out of the bedroom.He’s talking to a slender young woman, her long hair down, wearing a floral dress with a hemline much higher than - but then again, Bucky is wearing a singlet and no shoes to talk to a lady, so obviously standards of dress are much different in the future.

“Is Steve -” Wanda starts, then breaks off when she sees Steve.She looks momentarily surprised, a reaction Steve is not unused to from women who’ve previously heard about how great he supposedly is from Bucky.But then she says, “Okay, huh.I was not expecting that.”

“Steve is joining us from nineteen forty-one,” says Bucky, trying to throw his arm around Steve’s neck.Steve ducks away, wondering what, exactly, Wanda can have been expecting instead.

“Miss,” says Steve, nodding his head in acknowledgment of her presence and trying not to feel too self-conscious about their collective state of undress.

“You knew there was something up?” Bucky asks Wanda.

“I felt, uh,” begins Wanda, waving her hands vaguely in the air.Then she sighs, resignedly, and says in a flat voice “There was a disturbance in the Force.”

Bucky snickers for some unknown reason, but Wanda keeps going.“I just wanted to see but I’m heading down to the lab in case Tony was affected too.”

“Great, we’ll meet you there,” says Bucky.

Wanda gives them a sloppy salute before heading back out the door of the apartment, and Bucky heads back into the bedroom.Steve hangs back a minute, casting an eye around to see if he can get any more clues about his situation.There are dirty dishes in the sink, stacks of paperbacks on the table, and pieces that look like his own artwork on the outside of the refrigerator.There is nothing particular to suggest a feminine presence.

He shakes his head and re-enters the bedroom, where Bucky is pouring himself into dungarees so tight they might as well be painted on. He pulls on an undershirt, just as tight, with a design of a rainbow bullseye with a star in the middle and Steve is back to staring even though he shouldn’t.

“See something you like?” Bucky teases.

Steve does, but that's not the point.“Is this really what passes for sharp dressing in 2018?” he asks.

Bucky is now in the middle of pulling his hair back into a queue but he looks down at himself.“Yes?” he says, grinning.

~~

Bucky ushers Steve toward the elevator.Steve has apparently decided he is not in a touchy-feely mood, which is helpful because there is a problem that needs to be solved before any touching and feeling can occur, but also disappointing because Bucky is currently having trouble keeping his hands to himself.Of course he loves Steve no matter what Steve looks like, and he’s not going to pretend that the supersized version of Steve is unattractive, but this is the version of Steve that Bucky grew up with.This is the way Steve looked when Bucky first fell in love with him.This is the version of Steve that Hydra was never able to take away from Bucky, no matter how thoroughly they tried to wipe his memories.But right now, Steve is looking understandably bewildered by everything going on around him, so Bucky settles for bumping shoulders with him.

“I know this has got to be confusing, but if there’s anybody who can figure out how to fix whatever is going on, it’ll be somebody on our team.I promise we’ll fix this,” Bucky says.

Steve’s frown has been getting steadily deeper, and eventually he says, “How are we in 2018?I should be a hundred.”

“It’s complicated,” says Bucky immediately, but Steve just gives him a Look.It’s the look the others call “Captain America is Disappointed in You”.

As Bucky is struggling for a better, but still succinct answer, the elevator stops at the main lab floor and the doors slide open, revealing a tense standoff between Tony, on one side of the lab bench, and Tony’s collection of teenaged interns, on the other side.At one end of the lab bench, Wanda and Pietro are holding a hushed, hurried conference.In the middle of the lab bench sits a sort of baton wrapped in copper wire and studded with quartz crystals.Bucky recognizes it as the “wand” yesterday’s villain had been wielding.

When Tony sees Bucky and Steve stepping out of the elevator, he snaps, “JARVIS, more intruders!”

“As I have been trying to explain, sir -” JARVIS begins.

“Mr. White Wolf Winter Soldier sir!” says Peter, stepping forward toward Bucky.Then he stops, freezes, and says, “you, uh, do remember me, right?”

“Ye-es,” drawls Bucky, amused.

“Oh thank god!” Peter says, and then all in one breath he adds,“Only Mr. Stark texted us to come over right away to look at something from the battle yesterday, but when we got here he was passed out on the floor, and then when he woke up he said he didn’t know us and the last thing he remembers is giving the press conference where he told everyone he’s Iron Man!”Then he notices Steve and says, “Oh, who’s this?”

Steve sticks out his hand and Peter looks at it curiously before realizing he should shake it.

“Steve Rogers,” Steve introduces himself.

“Oh!Uh,” Peter stammers, clearly putting the pieces together for himself as to Steve’s identity.

“Peter, you’re supposed to introduce yourself now,” Bucky prompts.

“Yes!Um, I’m Peter Parker,” Peter finally manages.

Bucky watches Peter and Steve shaking hands and it dawns on him that it might be up to him to get the team all focused and pulling in the same direction.Right.He can do this.

He steps forward and shoos Steve and Peter back toward the lab bench.At the same time, the elevator doors open again to disgorge Jane, Darcy, Natasha, and Clint.Darcy is still in her pyjamas but she has managed to get Jane dressed, despite the fact that Jane still looks mostly asleep.

Tony’s mouth falls open and he collapses bonelessly into a wheeled chair that takes off across the floor on him.“Where are all these people coming from?” he complains.

“We heard there was, uh, a thing,” says Darcy.

“There is most definitely a thing,” agrees Bucky.He very firmly squashes the little voice in his brain that tells him it’s not his place to make decisions, only to follow orders.That part of his life is over.With Steve and Tony both affected by whatever this is, it’s going to be up to either Bucky or Natasha to take charge.

Then Tony is saying, “Holy shit, are you Jane Foster?” and Darcy is saying, “Oh my god, that’s _Steve_!” and Bucky is starting to feel his heart race and his mouth get dry but if he doesn’t try to start herding the cats, it’s just going to devolve into more chaos.

“JARVIS, is this everybody?” Bucky asks.

Tony says, “JARVIS, don’t answer that,” but JARVIS says,

“Sir, as you appear to be mentally compromised, I believe it is in your best interests that I cooperate with Sergeant Barnes.”As Tony is mouthing “Sergeant Barnes?” in disbelief, JARVIS continues, addressing himself to Bucky, “This is, indeed, everyone currently present on the residential floors of the Tower.Ms. Potts and Mr. Hogan are in Hong Kong, Colonel Rhodes and Mr. Wilson are in Washington, D.C., and Thor and Doctor Banner are currently off-world assisting with the settlement of New Asgard.”

“Doctor _Bruce_ Banner?” Tony interjects.

“Off-world?” Steve echoes.

Jane shuffles forward and slumps against the lab bench, resting her head on her crossed arms, muttering, “It’s too early to be alive”.

Clint backs up to lean against one of the side tables, causing a carefully-stacked pile of robot parts to fall to the floor and scatter noisily.He swears and scrambles after some of the parts.

“This is your expert team?” Steve mutters to Bucky in an undertone.

“Who _are_ all you people?” asks Tony, who, to Bucky’s knowledge, hasn’t even been briefed that there is a team that he is part of.

“Head of Wakanda Science and Information Exchange”, says Shuri.

Tony looks between Shuri, suspiciously alert for such an early hour, and Jane, still leaning against the lab bench and scrubbing the sleep from her eyes.“You can’t all be scientists,” he objects.“Look at you, you’re children!”

“Oh, and you’re the only child prodigy the world is allowed to have produced?” Shuri fires back.

“Political science,” puts in Darcy.

“I’m not a scientist, I’m a - oh, I don’t know how to say it in English,” says Wanda, and then speaks a word in Sokovian that sets Pietro snickering and that Bucky automatically translates into English as “A witch.”

“That’s nice,” Pietro laughs, “are you going to start wearing a school uniform and a green and white scarf?”

“Excuse you,” Wanda retorts, “I am clearly a Gryffindor.”

“We’re scientists,” Peter declares, indicating himself, MJ, and Ned; and then when MJ elbows him in the ribs, he adds, “well, we’re seniors at a STEM magnet school.”

“Artist,” says Steve, although he glances to Bucky as if for confirmation.Well.They’ll have that conversation later, if they need to.

“Carnie,” says Clint, and Natasha’s expression flickers ever so briefly, a sign that probably only Bucky and Clint know her well enough to be able to read as surprise.She drifts over to Clint in a fashion calculated to read as casual, and starts chatting with him, also in a calculatedly casual manner.

“And those two?” Tony asks, pointing at Natasha and Pietro.

“International Woman of Mystery,” says Bucky, answering for Natasha, and Wanda says, pointing to Pietro,

“He’s a pain in the ass.”

“Hey!” Pietro exclaims.

“Sir,” JARVIS addresses Tony, “shall I pull up the team’s personnel files for you to review?”And then, without waiting for Tony to answer, JARVIS produces a projection showcasing the team members’ various abilities.

“Is anybody actually in charge around here?” Steve asks, looking around and then pinching the bridge of his nose.

Everybody looks around awkwardly at each other, except for Natasha and Clint, who are still deep in conversation.Darcy and Peter put their fingers on the tips of their noses.Tony is busy questioning JARVIS about the team members’ files.

“Normally, you are,” Bucky tells Steve.

Steve casts a quick glance around at everyone else and then asks Bucky, in an undertone, “Who’s going to listen to a guy like me?”

Bucky nudges Steve with his elbow.“You’d be surprised,” he says.At least, he hopes the team will still be willing to follow Steve’s lead when he’s in this form.He knows for certain that Steve has always had what it takes to be a leader.

“Huh, okay,” says Steve, and Bucky feels guiltily relieved that he won’t have to exercise any more of his shaky leadership skills.Steve looks around at the assorted team members assembled (heh) in the lab, then stands up a little straighter and addresses himself to the group.“Here’s what we’re going to do.First, we need to figure out exactly what’s happened to me and to - Stark, apparently -”

“You don’t know who I am?” Tony interjects in disbelief.

“ - And to figure out if anyone else is affected,” Steve continues, as though he hadn’t heard.

“Barton,” puts in Natasha, and Clint stands up straighter, looking alarmed.

“You can’t know that!” he says.“How can you know that?”

Natasha runs a hand through Clint’s hair, which he looks pleased about until she says, “No scars from having your cochlear implants put in.”

Clint blinks very rapidly and says, “Yeah I can’t argue with you on that.”

“Coffee,” says Jane plaintively.

“Breakfast?” Peter suggests.

Steve nods at those suggestions, then continues.“Once we know what’s happened and how many people it’s happened to, the scientists and, uh, witches, can start working on how to fix it, if it even can be fixed.”

“And somebody needs to find Rogers some clothes that fit him so he can stop feeling like a wet alley cat,” Natasha adds, and Steve gives her a sharp look.She shrugs and says, “I’d lend you some of my stuff, but I don’t think you’d like that very much.”

Then Shuri and Wanda are directing JARVIS to pull up video from yesterday’s battle, JARVIS is reassuring Tony that Shuri and Wanda can be trusted with the intel, and Darcy is firing up the commercial-grade espresso machine that _of course_ Tony has in his lab.Meanwhile, Pietro is already coming back from the coffee shop downstairs with a box full of pastries and another full of breakfast sandwiches.Peter ushers Steve towards the bathroom in the back of the lab and Steve emerges, looking only slightly less unhappy with his sartorial options, in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that says, “May the mass x acceleration be with you.”Except for the unhappy expression, it’s a very good look on him, which is something that Bucky tells himself he can spend more time appreciating after the problem-solving is properly under way.

Jane takes a long swig of her coffee before joining Shuri and Wanda to review yesterday’s footage, while the rest of the team help themselves to breakfast.Steve casts a skeptical eye over the breakfast sandwich Bucky hands him, and an even more dubious eye at the cappuccino proffered by Darcy.

As he’s giving it a cautious sip, Wanda says, “There!JARVIS, play back the last minute of footage.”

Everyone crowds around the projected video in time to see yesterday’s villain pointing his magic wand at Steve and saying something.Several people crowd closer, and Steve makes his way to the front of the group.

“That’s…me,” he says, bemused.The Steve on-screen, the larger version, is of course not wearing his helmet, so his face is easy to see.

“Yeah, you, uh,” Bucky starts. _Went ahead and did something stupid even though I told you not to_ , isn’t probably the best approach, especially not in front of the whole team.“Had an experimental medical procedure,” he explains.

Shuri swats the crowd away and asks JARVIS to replay the footage again.“What’s he saying?” she asks.

“I’m afraid I don’t have any audio,” JARVIS replies, and Natasha prods Clint.

“What, me?” he asks, looking bewildered.

“You’re reading lips right now, aren’t you?” Natasha says.

“I don’t like this part where you know way more about me than I know about you,” Clint complains, and Steve and Tony make noises of agreement, but Clint asks JARVIS to replay the video again and stares intently at the screen.

“Di - no - de - _desenescete_?” Clint says.“That’s not a word.”

“It’s a spell!” Tony exclaims.“An actual Harry Potter spell.Do we do that now?Is that a thing we do in 2018?”

“Well, why not?” says Wanda.“If the wand and the spoken word help him focus his power?”

“De-grow old?” Natasha says.“De-age?De-age.”

“De-age,” repeats Steve.

“If we were de-aged, shouldn’t we all be small, adorable children by now?” Tony objects.

“That’s a good question,” says Jane.

Wanda says, “I think we should call Doctor Strange.”

“That man!” says Shuri, “what do we need him for?Just another white guy who studied the ancient customs of another culture for two weeks and came back proclaiming himself to be a master of the technique.”

“I love you so much right now,” says MJ.

Shuri favours her with a smile, before looking around at the group.With breakfasts finished, the general level of off-topic chatter has increased.

“The rest of you, get out of here and let the scientists work,” she says.“We’ll call you back if we need to ask you more questions or run tests.”

There’s a flurry of “yes, ma’ams,” and even a “yes, your worshipfulness,” from Ned, but Peter says,

“Are we sure it’s not time travel?”

“No, this guy wasn't harnessing anywhere near enough energy to travel through time,” Shuri replies confidently.“Why?”

“Cause then it won't matter if we tell them any spoilers,” Peter says.

Shuri rolls her eyes.“Spoil away,” she says, and then everyone except Shuri, Jane, MJ, Natasha, and Wanda are filing onto the elevators.Steve has his arms crossed throughout the ride and the furrow in his brow keeps getting deeper.

“So if spoilers aren't a problem I think we should watch some movies,” Peter says, “I can’t wait to see Mr. Stark’s reaction when he sees _Tales of the Black Freighter II_ for the first time.”

“They made a sequel?” Tony asks, his face lighting up.

“Sweet!” adds Clint.

Steve looks up at Bucky, and Bucky’s pleased to realize they still know each other well enough that he can interpret Steve’s expression without exchanging any words.

“We’re going to head back to our apartment for a bit,” Bucky says.

“Oh are you,” says Pietro with a leer, and it’s a good thing that JARVIS is in the process of stopping at Steve and Bucky’s floor right then and there, because Steve’s reaction to that suggestion is likely to be - not good, given that insinuations of that type could easily have gotten them both arrested in 1941.

As the elevator doors close on the rest of the group, Steve whirls to face Bucky so abruptly that Bucky almost collides with him.

“So all of those people know that we’re lovers and we’re not worried that any of them is going to snitch on us?” Steve demands.“And what about your wife?”

“Wife?” repeats Bucky, momentarily stymied.

Steve grabs Bucky’s left hand and holds it up in front of Bucky’s face, tapping his ring finger.

Oh, is _that_ what the problem is.

“No, you jackass, I’m married to you!” Bucky exclaims.He’s aware that he shouldn’t be calling his spouse a jackass while he’s trying to make up to him, but he and Steve have never exactly been polite.The rudeness would reassure him.“Being queer is legal now and we don’t have to hide anything.”

“Oh, of course,” mutters Steve, crossing his arms and leaning back against the wall next to the elevator.

“No, look,” says Bucky, easing his wedding ring off his finger, “why would I engrave this inside my ring if I was getting married to anyone else but you?You know you’ve always been the only one for me.”

He hands the ring to Steve, and he knows there’s a big dopey smile growing on his face, but that’s not exactly anything new when it comes to how he feels about Steve. Or the fact that they finally got to pledge their love for each other in front of God and everybody else.Their wedding day had been one of the best days of his life.

Steve closes his hand around the ring without looking at it.It occurs to Bucky that before the War, Bucky had been busy trying to keep up appearances by dating plenty of women. He and Steve hadn’t exactly been great at communicating their emotions to each other, no matter how much sex they’d been having.Maybe this version of Steve really doesn’t know how much he means to Bucky.

~~

Steve takes a couple of deep breaths and doesn’t look at the inside of the ring.He assumes it says, “To the End of the Line.”Then he follows Bucky back through the door into their apartment.Now that he's had a moment to think about it, there really isn’t any reason for Bucky to lie to him about their being married, and it’s not fair to Bucky for Steve to take out his frustration with the entire situation on Bucky.

“Sorry,” he says, “I’m just feeling a bit like Alice Through the Looking-Glass right now.”

“Yeah?” says Bucky, holding out a hand toward Steve. “Running as fast as you can just to stay in one place?”

Steve takes Bucky’s hand and allows Bucky to sling his other arm around Steve’s shoulders.“No, trying to believe six impossible things before breakfast,” he grumbles, but he puts the ring back on Bucky’s (metal!) finger anyway, then laces their fingers together.

“You’ve had breakfast!” Bucky laughs, and starts steering Steve towards the sitting room.“Wait, was that enough breakfast?Do you want anything else to eat?”

“Can we afford that?” Steve asks, even though the breakfast they ate in the lab was more than enough for now.“How do we afford any of this?”

“The army owed us a lot of back pay,” grins Bucky.“And Tony - that’s Stark - he pays for all sorts of stuff here because he thinks he needs to buy our friendship, even though he doesn’t.C’mon, let’s get comfy and then I can answer all your questions.”

As they enter the sitting room, the light level slowly rises, just as it had in the bedroom. One wall becomes transparent, showing that they are currently somewhere in a skyscraper.Manhattan, maybe?

“How did we get here?” Steve asks.“In the future, I mean?”It seems like the most important thing to know, and therefore the best place to start.

“You had to start with the hard stuff, didn’t you?” Bucky asks.

“No, we can start wherever you like, I guess,” says Steve.He can tell from the way Bucky’s holding himself that he really, really doesn’t want to have to talk about whatever it is.

“No, let’s start with the hard stuff,” Bucky says, sinking into the couch.“That way we’ll get it all out of the way so we can talk about the cool stuff, like Bob Ross and bath bombs.”He pats the seat next to himself on the couch.

So much has happened already today that Steve would really like nothing more than to sit down next to Bucky and curl into his side, but he still feels he needs to make a token protest.“I don’t need to be treated with kid gloves, Bucky,” he says.

Bucky lets out a shaky breath.“No, but maybe I do,” he says.Steve gives in and goes to sit beside Bucky, and Bucky puts his arm around Steve and pulls him into a close hug.He’s comfortingly warm and solid and Steve lets himself release the tension he’s accumulated over the course of the morning and relax against Bucky, tucking his face against Bucky’s shoulder as they sit side by side.

Some time later, sooner than Steve would probably like, Bucky releases his embrace but takes both of Steve’s hands in his and rests his forehead against Steve’s.

“Okay, you’re not going to like this,” Bucky says.“You’re going to get really mad and try to swear vengeance on everyone who was involved, but you’ve already done that and now everyone is either dead or in prison, so just -”

Steve and Bucky both startle as the disembodied voice - JARVIS, the others called him - clears his incorporeal throat and says, “Excuse me, Captain Rogers, Sergeant Barnes?”

Steve jumps a bit and drops Bucky’s hands, but Bucky is instantaneously on his feet, his posture tense, and he has somehow acquired a vicious-looking knife from somewhere.Then after a moment he looks around, sighs heavily, and collapses back onto the couch.

“Yes, JARVIS?” he asks.

“Mr. Wilson is on the phone for you,” JARVIS reports.

“Yeah, okay, put him through,” says Bucky, dropping the knife onto the coffee table and then covering his face with his hands.To Steve he says, “Sam is your best friend.He’s probably heard we had an incident.”

“ _You’re_ my best friend,” Steve objects.He hopes that being married to Bucky doesn’t somehow mean they can no longer be friends.Bucky drops one hand to take Steve’s hand and he smiles at Steve, even though he still looks rattled.

“So what, you can’t have two best friends?” he says.

The flat black rectangle on the wall over where the fireplace should be flickers to life, like the screens in the lab had. It now shows a handsome black man with a gap between his teeth, somewhere where he is surrounded by trees in full leaf.

“Hey, guys,” he says, and he can apparently see Steve and Bucky as well as they can see him, because he has the same careful non-reaction to seeing Steve that Steve noticed all the other team members having down in the lab.“I heard from Rhodey you had a thing.”

“Yeah we had a fucking thing,” Bucky replies, and Steve is starting to think that perhaps the strangest part of the future has got to be the way all the words sound the same, but seem to have taken on new meanings.

“How are you holding up?You want me to come back up there?” says Sam.“I can cut this short and be there tomorrow.”

Bucky gets a look on his face that Steve knows means Bucky knows he should ask for help but isn’t going to, but then he says, “Yeah, that would be great, thanks.”

“Hey, no problem,” says Sam.“It doesn’t sound like you have any responsible adults there at all right now -”

“And we still won’t after you get here,” interrupts Bucky, but both he and Sam are smiling.“Now go finish your run, I’m trying to tell Steve about the future.”

“Listen, Steve,” says Sam, “don’t let him fill your head with a bunch of bullshit.Green Day is _not_ the greatest band of all time.”

“Bye, Sam,” Bucky sing-songs, and the screen on which they’ve been talking to him immediately goes dark again.

Then Bucky sinks back into the couch, takes Steve’s hand, and says, “So.How we got here.”

 

By the time Bucky is ending his story with, “But I’m doing a lot better now and I only need to go to therapy every second week,” Steve’s blood pressure is much higher than it should be, and the only thing stopping him from immediately going out to fight every last rat-bastard responsible is that he apparently already has.He doesn’t really know what to say, isn’t sure what the bigger version of him might already have said, so he pulls Bucky in for another hug instead.This time, Bucky buries his face against Steve’s shoulder, and his breathing is a bit shaky.

Steve still has dozens of questions about politics since the war, and whether queers and women and people of all races really have as much equality as the makeup of their team seems to suggest, but that can wait for a time when Bucky hasn’t just had to tell Steve about all of the terrible things that happened to him over the last 70 years.Normally when things get too emotional between them, they’re prone to cracking jokes at each other’s expense to defuse the tension, but this doesn’t seem like the right time for that strategy.Instead, he runs his hand through Bucky’s hair and waits until Bucky decides it’s time to change the subject.

Eventually Bucky releases Steve and sits forward on the couch to grab a smaller black rectangle, about the size of a hardcover book, which lights up when he touches it.

“Okay, this is called a tablet,” Bucky says, “and you can do all kinds of things on it, watch movies, read books, play games, send messages back and forth with your friends, all kinds of stuff.”As he’s talking, he taps on the tablet in rapid succession and it shows a number of different stylized images.Steve says,

“I hope you don’t expect me to remember how to do all of that after just one demonstration.”

“No, no,” says Bucky.“I want you to watch our wedding video and then I can explain who all the people you saw downstairs are.”

“Wedding video,” Steve repeats, but he lets Bucky rearrange them both on the couch so they can both see the tablet as Bucky holds it.Coincidentally this leaves Steve snugged up with his back against Bucky, his head under Bucky’s chin, Bucky’s legs on either side of Steve’s.Steve isn’t planning to complain.

“Okay, ready?” Bucky asks.He taps the tablet a few more times and a moving picture starts up, in colour, with “It’s Been A Long, Long Time” playing over it.

From their wedding, they move on to concepts such as Brangelina and Kimye, then celebrity culture in general, then the paparazzi, the ease of taking and sharing digital pictures, the internet and its uses.They're getting started on the Cold War when JARVIS interrupts them politely.Bucky startles again, but not as badly as he had the first time.Well, even if he had, now that Steve knows the story he wouldn't be able to blame Bucky for being on edge all the time.

“Captain Rogers, Sergeant Barnes,” says JARVIS, “Ms. Romanoff has an update for you.”

“Okay, let’s hear it,” says Bucky, and then Natasha’s face is appearing on the larger screen on the wall.

“Shuri, Wanda and I are heading out to question the suspect,” she says, “and Peter and Ned are upstairs filling Stark and Barton in on the last ten years’ worth of pirate movies, if you’re in any state to join them.”She gives them a suggestive look, much like Pietro had in the elevator.

“Thanks, Nat, that’s great,” says Bucky.

Once the screen has gone dark again, Steve turns to Bucky.“Why is everyone convinced we’re busy fucking all the time?”

“Well,” says Bucky, and gets a sheepish smile on his face.“We’ve only been married for, like, six months.”

Steve could definitely get used to this future, where there’s no reason to keep up appearances and nobody is going to tell him he has no right to be with the man he loves.

“So why aren’t we doing it right now?” Steve demands, feigning outrage.

The smile slips off Bucky’s face and he sits up a little straighter, adjusting their seating so they can look each other in the face.At first Steve fears Bucky may be about to tell Steve that he doesn’t find Steve attractive like this any more, now that he’s gotten used to the bigger, stronger version, but what he says is,

“Steve, I’ve - changed a lot, I’m not the same guy I used to be, I didn’t want to presume -”

That may be true, but Steve cuts him off.“There’s one thing that hasn’t changed at all,” he says, “you’re still just as stupid as you always were.”

He plants his knees on both sides of Bucky’s hips but then thinks better of pushing him back into the couch.Maybe after his years of not being able to choose his own actions, he won’t want to play at letting Steve be the one in control?But Bucky just grins and pulls Steve down on top of him, and Steve is more than willing to play his part.

 

Later in the day, they head up to the common floor where, JARVIS informs them, the pirate movie marathon has been put on hold in favour of a group meal.This time when Bucky wants to put his arms around Steve and nuzzle his hair in the elevator, Steve is happy to let him, and they exit the elevator on the common floor hand in hand.

All of the team members Steve met, however briefly, this morning are gathered around, and a veritable buffet of foods is laid out on the low table in the centre of the room.Some people are sitting on the couches or on the floor, already with their plates of food.Clint seems to have taken an entire pizza for himself.Steve picks up a plate and starts to inspect the dishes laid out on the table.Except for the pizzas, there isn’t anything that looks familiar.

“Nobody can ever agree on what to have so we usually just order some of everything,” Bucky says, coming up behind him.He goes on to point out which dishes come from which parts of the world, which is less helpful than Steve would like, but it seems like there is more than enough to go around, so Steve helps himself to a small portion of everything that looks interesting.Bucky, like Clint, takes an entire pizza.

Wanda and Darcy move over on the couch so Steve and Bucky can sit together.Then Tony squishes himself in between Steve and Darcy, barely avoiding tipping his plate into Steve’s lap.Steve can’t help but feel for him - today has been disorienting enough for Steve and he’s had Bucky to show him around; he can’t imagine what it must have been like for Tony to wake up and not recognize anyone at all.

“What ship name did you get?” Tony asks him.“I got ‘Pepperony’.”

“Stucky,” Steve grumbles.He and Bucky had had an animated discussion about it, and decided that, of all the celebrity couple names they could have ended up with, Stucky was probably the least terrible.

“I didn't get a portmanteau name,” Clint complains.

“Yeah, that's because nobody knew you were married,” Pietro points out.

“I can’t believe Pepper wanted to marry me,” Tony continues, a giant grin on his face.“She’s so out of my league.”

That’s pretty much how Steve feels about Bucky, and he’s about to say so, when Shuri clears her throat.She’s seated regally in an armchair like the actual royalty she apparently is, and the general chatter in the room immediately stops.

“We have a good theory of what happened, which also explains why none of you are adorable little children right now,” Shuri says.“Your villain used a spell that -”

“Hold on, a spell, really?” Tony interrupts.“You can’t tell me that we’ve somehow invented magic in the last ten years.”

“Magic, science, all one and the same thing,” says Shuri.“Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science.”

“A spell,” mutters Tony, as though the concept personally offends him, but he gestures for Shuri to carry on.

“Your villain used a spell that re-wound your bodies by somewhere between ten and fifteen years,” Shuri explains.“It stopped where it did because he wasn’t able to harness enough power to make the rewinding go any further back.That also explains why it didn’t take effect right away in battle, the spell needed time to build up the energy needed to start the transformation.”

“Can we fix it?” Steve asks.“Do we need to fix it?”He’s ambivalent about how much needs fixing.He doesn’t feel any particular need to regrow that big, muscle-bound body that he apparently has in the future.And if he gets his memories from the last ten years back, the version of himself that he is right now will essentially cease to exist.But on the other hand, he _is_ missing ten years of memories that will undoubtedly help him interact more effectively with his teammates and friends, including shared memories with his longest-term friend and the love of his life.

“Dr. Cho is on her way from Seoul,” Shuri replies.“She’ll help us figure out if anything can be done.The three of you will need to decide for yourselves though whether you want to make any changes, though.”

 

The next day, Sam and Rhodey, who is Tony’s best friend, have returned from Washington, and the entire team traipses down to the lab again.Shuri, Wanda, and Dr. Cho quickly dismiss everyone except Steve, Tony, and Clint.Bucky, Sam, Rhodey, and Natasha insist on staying but everyone else leaves in reasonably good spirits, arguing good-naturedly about which essential pieces of pop culture to introduce next if the de-aging situation can’t be reversed.

Dr. Cho has brought with her some sort of full-body scanning capsule and a variety of other testing equipment, and the sight of it is clearly making Bucky uncomfortable - at least, clear to Steve’s practiced eye.

“Don’t stick around here just for my sake,” Steve says, taking Bucky aside.

“Shit, Steve, are you sure?” Bucky says, rubbing the back of his own neck.

Steve looks at the array of tests and the gathering of scientists.“It’s just going to be a bunch of tests, by the looks of it,” he says.“Lots of other people here to keep me company.I promise I’ll call you before anything big is about to happen.”

Bucky relaxes visibly, and he leans down to give Steve a thorough kiss before heading back toward the elevator.

“Wilson,” says Bucky to Sam, “you’re in charge of making sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”

Sam favours Bucky with a rude hand gesture, then makes a motion at Steve indicating he’s keeping an eye on him.Steve settles in with Tony and Clint for an exciting day of medical testing.

By the end of the second day of blood tests, tissue samples, and MRIs, Tony is complaining that “In the movies, this kind of thing is always solved in one afternoon.If I was working on it -”

“Fine, fine,” says Shuri, rolling her eyes theatrically.“You have permission to join us in the lab.”

Eventually, the team of scientists and witches has solved as much as they think they are going to.Steve gets a little lost in all the talk of morphic resonance fields, telomere degradation, and cascades of apoptosis, but what it seems to boil down to is that although Wanda should be able to help the three of them recover their lost memories, it’s likely too dangerous to attempt aging up their bodies again.

“If you like, though, we should be able to take care of your chronic conditions,” says Dr. Cho.

“Are you sure, ma’am?” asks Steve.“That’s a list as long as my arm.”

Tony says, “Can you get this shrapnel out of my heart so I can stop slowly dying of palladium poisoning?”

“You know, I did hear that Pepper found evidence you have a heart,” says Dr. Cho.

“Hey!” Tony objects.

Steve tries to discuss his options with Bucky that afternoon, but all Bucky will say is that after everything he’s been through, he is the last person who is going to be telling Steve what choices to make about his own body.

“You know I’ll love you and support you no matter what you decide to do,” says Bucky, and pulls Steve into a full-body hug.Steve supposes that he can’t have been too unhappy in his big body, but nothing is ever going to quite compare to being able to step into Bucky’s embrace and tuck his head in underneath Bucky’s chin.

Sam is not much better as a sounding board - “Man, I’m your friend, not your therapist” - but Steve, Tony, and Clint wind up having a long discussion about whether or not to get their memories back and how many further changes to make to their bodies.Eventually, all three of them decide to go for it - Steve is missing a good portion of his relationship with Bucky, and Tony and Clint are missing the entirety of their relationships with their partners.As for the physical side, it’s easy for Tony to decide - he will die sooner rather than later if the shrapnel and the palladium-powered reactor aren't removed - but for Clint and Steve the decision takes a little more deliberation.They function just fine without any modifications, and Clint’s whole family are apparently fluent in ASL.When Steve thinks about it, though, it would be nice if his back didn’t hurt every time he slept wrong, and it would be even nicer not to have to be constantly fighting to breathe properly.

“It's probably easier to do our jobs with the rest of the team if we can hear them clearly,” Clint points out.

“I'm not sure I'll be doing the same job as I did when I was a giant beefcake,” Steve counters.

“So? We train you better in marksmanship, or you fly one of those robot suits like Tony and Rhodey,” says Clint.

It's certainly true, thinks Steve, that he’ll find it hard to stay out of the world-saving business if it’s still what all of his friends are doing.Besides, if he can go through Dr. Cho’s machine once and then never have to need medical help again, it seems worth it.

“I'm going to go for it,” Steve says to Bucky as they're lying in bed that night.

“Hmm?” says Bucky.To be fair, he might still be a bit distracted after how they just spent the last half hour.

“Wanda’s memory recapture and Dr. Cho’s regeneration treatments,” Steve says.

“You're not just doing this for me, are you?” Bucky asks, pulling Steve into a loose embrace.“Or for the team?”

“No, I'm doing it for me,” Steve says.“I can't go back to saving the world if I'm in hospital every winter with pneumonia, can I?”

~~

Bucky wants to be there for Steve while Steve goes into the regeneration cradle and gets his memories back.He should be able to be there.For his own goddamn husband, goddamnit.But when he and Steve arrive on the lab level, and he sees Wanda standing next to the reclined chair with a mess of electrodes and wires in her hands, it’s like all of reality comes to a screeching halt around him.His heart stutters into his throat and his skin starts to feel simultaneously hot and cold at the same time.He’s still holding on to rationality with part of his mind, but that part rapidly gets frustrated and angry with his inability to deal with a situation that is clearly no threat at all, thanks brain.

“Okay,” he registers Steve saying, “JARVIS, we need to go to a different floor now.How about the common floor.”And he lets Steve steer him back into the elevator.

“An excellent choice, Captain,” says JARVIS, “Mr. Stark, Agent Barton, and Mr. Wilson are currently on that floor.”

Bucky grits his teeth and reminds himself to start listing things he can see.His centering techniques work much better when he’s not mad at himself.Steve squeezes Bucky’s hand between both of his own.

“Fuck, Steve, I’m sorry,” Bucky gets out.

“No, I’m sorry,” Steve says.“I should have asked what the medical equipment would look like before I asked you to come down there with me.”

Bucky would argue more - he’s supposed to have this under control, damnit - but the elevator opens on the common floor to reveal Tony, Clint, and Sam yelling at each other over a game of Mario Kart.When they get there, nobody has to say anything, and Bucky can’t decide if that makes him feel better or worse, but Sam stands up and tosses his controller to Bucky before heading over to take Bucky’s place next to Steve.

“Wait,” says Steve, and then pulls Bucky in for a kiss, and that definitely makes him feel better.“I’ll come right back up as soon as I’m done, okay?”

Bucky reluctantly lets go and watches Steve get back into the elevator with Sam.As the doors are closing, Sam says,

“Kick Clint’s ass for me, would you?”

“Fat chance,” Clint fires back.“Come on, Barnes, show us what you’ve got.”

Bucky makes his way over to the couch, where he can get a clear view of the game.He _is_ grateful, he decides, for friends who understand and won’t make a big deal about his issues.

The procedure takes most of the day, which Bucky tells himself he doesn’t need to feel antsy about - Tony and Clint have both already gone through the memory reconstruction and the regeneration cradle and are now back to their regular selves.From Mario Kart they move on to _Alton Brown’s Good Eats_ , and then somehow the three of them are in the common floor kitchen trying to make a perfect 63 degree egg while Darcy films them on her phone (“Oh yeah, this is definitely going on the Avengers’ official twitter feed”), which Bucky is totally in the middle of being the first to achieve when Steve texts him.

 _Successfully finished memory and immune system treatments_ , reads the first text, followed closely by, _Meet in our apartment instead of common floor? ;)_

“Sorry, guys, gotta go,” says Bucky, leaving his cooking experiment where it is and hurrying towards the elevator.

Steve is fine, of course, still his original pre-War size but with all of his memories back in place, but he’s waiting for Bucky with an anxious expression on his face.

“Sorry to have put you through all that,” he says, as he lets Bucky pull him into an all-encompassing hug.“I forgot how much of a pain in the ass I was at that age.”

“Uh-huh,” says Bucky, his face in Steve’s hair.The way he remembers it, both of them were pains in the ass in their 20s and it’s a wonder they managed to stay together.He’s not going to let anything pull them apart now, though.“I have some ideas how you can make it up to me.”

 

Sam grumbles when Steve tells him the team has decided to appoint him as the new Captain America, but he’s clearly pleased.Conservatives grumble even more when the appointment is announced publicly, which pleases everyone on the team.

Back at the Tower, Steve waits until Tony and Clint are both taking drinks of their coffee before saying,

“If I’d had to borrow clothes from Natasha, it wouldn’t have been the first time I wore women’s clothing.”

This pronouncement has the predicted effect on Tony and Clint’s ability to breathe, and Darcy lets put a high-pitched squealing sound.Once he’s sufficiently recovered, Tony demands,

“Pics or it didn't happen.”

“You know, I bet there are some somewhere,” says Steve thoughtfully.If Bucky remembers that picture correctly, he and Steve were both in dresses when it was taken.There is also a later picture, taken during the War, featuring not just Steve and Bucky but also Howard in dresses, but Bucky will wait to bring that picture up for another time that Tony and Clint are trying to drink something.

When it's time for Natasha to take Steve shopping for eyeglasses and modern menswear, she refuses to let Bucky tag along.Bucky is alarmed, but as it turns out, not for the reasons that he should have been.Steve comes back wearing skinny jeans that actually fit him, a close-fitting dress shirt, Chuck Taylors, and chunky black-framed glasses, a look that causes Bucky to nearly swallow his tongue.

“Punk,” he finally manages.

As Steve is rewarding Bucky for his positive reaction, Bucky concludes that, yes, Steve being small again is going to work out just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Credit for Shuri's take on Clarke's Third Law goes to the Cinderella episode of Girl Genius.
> 
> Visit me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ladivvinatravestia), where my asks box is always open to prompts.


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